PASADENA >> As thousands of music fans head to the desert for Coachella this weekend, Rose Bowl officials announced Thursday that they are contemplating a weekend music festival of their own that could come to Pasadena as early as next summer.

Rose Bowl CEO and General Manager Darryl Dunn said the stadium is in talks with various music promoters to develop a festival to be held at the stadium and in the surrounding Brookside Golf Course. The proposed event would appeal to a range of ages and would be unique to Pasadena, Dunn said.

If an environmental impact report is complete, the festival could begin in June 2015.

“In a perfect world, this would be an event we could be proud of and people in the community would accept, and they would circle the weekend on their calendar every year,” Dunn said.

Though the festival is still in the early planning stages, Dunn said it could generate significant revenue for the stadium and the community at large. The event would likely be a two- or three-day weekend concert similar to other festivals like this month’s Coachella in Indio or San Francisco’s Outside Lands but on a smaller scale and unique to Pasadena, Dunn said. There would be no camping allowed to make the event more manageable for a stadium nestled among the Arroyo Neighborhoods.

Dunn said city staff have begun preliminary environmental study on the possible festival, and officials will go to council in the next month to ask for funding for an environmental impact report. He said the city would likely pay for the EIR at first but then work the chosen promoter on a payment deal.

Should the music event become a reality, Dunn said, hosting an NFL team temporarily at the Rose Bowl would be off the table.

“It would be one or the other,” Dunn said.

The city is still in the midst of a lawsuit filed by neighbors of the iconic stadium that alleges the city’s environmental study on a possible NFL team playing at the Rose Bowl did not adequately take into account the environmental consequences for the treasured Arroyo Seco. A judge ruled in favor of the city on the lawsuit this year, but neighborhood groups said they plan to file an appeal.

Councilman Victor Gordo, who is also president of the Rose Bowl Operating Company Board, said the festival could bring new life into the stadium and take full advantage of a costly renovation, which the stadium will be paying off for the next three decades.

“These music festivals have been very popular throughout the country and there is a real opportunity here for the stadium and for the city,” Gordo said. “It could take Pasadena to the next level.”

The Rose Bowl has launched a new effort in recent months to generate revenue from non-football events, announcing a three night One Direction Concert and two nights with Eminem and Rihanna this summer. Gordo said a music festival could be the “anchor” event the stadium needs to be secure financially and finally remove the NFL option, which has been a source of contention for years between the stadium and the neighbors, from the table.

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Rose Bowl neighbor Nina Chomsky, president of the Linda Vista-Annandale Neighborhood Association, said she was wary about the proposal but said it could be a promising alternative to the NFL if the environmental analysis was sufficiently thorough.

“It’s possible it’s a preferable alternative to the NFL if it makes an enormous amount of money and is properly managed and administered,” Chomsky said. “My question is, is the effort and the money going to be put into this to control and manage the impacts?”

Dunn said extra care and outreach to communicate with the neighborhoods around the stadium will be essential in the planning process for the festival.

“We are going to need to engage in a dialogue (with the neighbors),” Dunn said. “Part of it is going to be an education process. Nobody, including us, wants an event that is going to create havoc in the Arroyo.”

Ultimately, Gordo said, the event could be a huge asset not just for the stadium but for the city.

“This whole thing (the renovation) was really to try to give the Rose Bowl a second life,” Gordo said. “That’s been our mantra: The next 100 years.”